A federal task force Monday will unveil an ambitious plan for restoring the Gulf of Mexico after decades of environmental abuse - most notably last year's massive oil spill.

Some of the details, however, have yet to be resolved, including how to implement the multi-state effort, what it will cost and where the money will come from.

The release of the plan coincides with the start of a four-day Gulf summit in Houston, in which about 400 scientists, federal and state officials, business leaders and conservationists will attempt to advance the government's response to long-term environmental problems along America's third coast. Participants will focus largely on the technical details, given the widespread support of the task force's priorities.

"The goals are the right goals," said Chris Dorsett, the Austin-based director of the Gulf program for the Ocean Conservancy. "The critical thing now is the implementation phase."

The spill brought new attention to the Gulf, which is one of the hemisphere's most diverse ecosystems, home to abundant wildlife and natural resources. It also is home to thousands of oil and gas platforms, miles of pipelines and a seasonal, low-oxygen "dead" zone caused by runoff from the Mississippi River.

The task force, established last year by President Barack Obama, calls for improved protection of marine habitats, improved water quality and more monitoring of Gulf species, among other goals.

Another priority will be to rebuild the rapidly disappearing wetlands of the Mississippi Delta. The marshes produce seafood, filter water of pollution and buffer New Orleans and the rest of Louisiana from storm surges.

Funding unclear

The Mississippi River, confined to channels by levees, deposits sediment into the Gulf rather than rebuilding marshes and barrier islands with a fresh layer of sediment as it did for millennia. The new strategy proposes using dredged sediment and river diversions to restore the wetlands.

The federal government concluded last year that the restoration of the Gulf will require billions of dollars and years, if not decades, to complete. It remains unclear how the effort would be funded.

A bipartisan group in Congress has filed bills that would set aside 80 percent of any Clean Water Act fines from the Gulf oil spill, but their prospects remain uncertain. Current law requires the money to go to a federal fund to clean up future oil spills.

The strategy "should make crystal clear that there are not only benefits of fulfilling these goals, but the immense national costs should they fail," Mark Davis, director of the Tulane Institute on Water Resources Law and Policy in New Orleans, wrote to the task force in response to an earlier draft. "Not only is the Gulf Coast a national ecological treasure, but it is a national economic engine."

A report card

The Harte Institute is developing a report card on the health of the Gulf that is intended to be scientifically based and understandable by policymakers and the public.

The report card will give annual grades for as many as 20 species, ranging from sea grasses and mangroves to bottlenose dolphins and brown pelicans. Ideally, the grades will measure the progress of restoration efforts, said Wes Tunnell, a marine biologist at the Harte Institute.

There are similar report cards for the Chesapeake Bay, Florida Everglades and other troubled ecosystems, but the Gulf is the most challenging, Tunnell said.

"People told us we are crazy because it's never been attempted on a water body this large before," he said. "The key to making this work is to get wide buy-in from officials and scientists in the Gulf."